Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Lean Methodology consists of three tools designed for entrepreneurs building new ventures: The Business Model Canvas – to write down all the hypotheses about a new business; Customer Development – a process for testing those hypotheses outside the building; Agile Engineering – to rapidly build minimal viable products to test product/market fit.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. As a result, the standard product development model is not only useless, it is dangerous.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. They communicated this to product management who looked at all of the internal requirements we had generated (e.g.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

After I retired, I began teaching Customer Development , a theory of how to reduce early stage risk in entrepreneurial ventures. 15,000 copies later, the horrifically bad proofreading, design and layout is now a badge of honor. You most definitely read the book for the content. Customer Development Manifesto.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Like a financial debt, the technical debt incurs interest payments, which come in the form of the extra effort that we have to do in future development because of the quick and dirty design choice. Startups especially can benefit by using technical debt to experiment, invest in process, and increase their product development leverage.

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Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 3, 2009

First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. We have to manage to learn something from our first product iteration. Definitely highlights the beauty of the web.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

We lack a consistent and clear definition of the job. When Ive asked mentors of mine who have worked in big companies about the role of the CTO, they usually talk about the importance of being the external face of the companys technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and employees.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. Steve Blank: Let’s fire our customers [.] I’ve fired two customers and have been fired from customers.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Their product definition fluctuates wildly – one month, it’s a dessert topping, the next it’s a floor wax. Their product development team is hard at work on a next-generation product platform, which is designed to offer a new suite of products – but this effort is months behind schedule.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations. This is precisely the dilemma that the doctrine of minimum viable product is designed to solve.

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San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Software Review 167

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Here are my definitions. Its goal is to take the original idea and search for a repeatable and scalable business model - first by finding product/market fit, then by testing all the parts of the business model (pricing, channel, acquisition/activation, partners, costs, etc.). Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career/Culture.

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Steve Blank

MAY 14, 2012

The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com , highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. ———– Whether your venture is a new pizza parlor or the hottest new software product, beware: These nine flawed assumptions are toxic.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. Paid - if your product monetizes customers better than your competitors, you have the opportunity to use your lifetime value advantage to drive growth.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

I think this concept is necessary in order to answer the truly vexing startup questions, like: “Should startups charge customers money from day one?&# Let’s begin with the four customer currencies. I had a lot of use for this concept back when I worked on game design and virtual worlds. are nonsensical.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2010

And that narrow definition of entrepreneurship doesn’t count all of the managers inside established companies who are effectively engaged in the same process of building an internal startup (see What is a startup? for my more expansive definition). for my more expansive definition). What motivates all these entrepreneurs?

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

That’s the definition of insanity. Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. The Customer Development process is then used to test each of the 9 building blocks of the business model.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

I suggested the best place to start the conversation is with the 21 st century definition of a startup: A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Apple has a track record of creating lots of interesting enabling infrastructure, like Quicktime and Bonjour, which sometimes become key to their products and othertimes not. My guess is they have lots of people constantly working on interesting new tools for their designers to play with. Will start to pay attention. Great post Eric.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

How many employees would a medium-sized business have in your definition? Some people have different definitions of that. I mean they have these definitions. Meetings are definitely one of those places, but email is another primary way that that comes in. Jason: Okay. I’m just clarifying. Edwin: Yes.

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steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

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Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 20, 2008 The engineering managers lament I was inspired to write The product managers lament while meeting with a startup struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with their product development process. I think where we get into trouble is we have many definitions of quality.

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

These damn models weren’t designed right so we’re fixing them on the line.” Next, you have to deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. And that’s just to get started. Let me know what you think.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

And do your customer development. And one last specific practice that came up at this session: feverishaaron : UI, design and programmers are all in the same department, all have the same title, and all are evaluated the same. That meant getting designers, programmers, and QA folks to cross-train and work together as peers.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 9, 2009

Thats the essence of so many of the lean startup techniques Ive evangelized: customer development , the Ideas/Code/Data feedback loop , and the adaptation of agile development to the startup experience. Creating a company-wide feedback loop that incorporates both customer development and agile development is a challenge.

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San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean Agile 132

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

Yet, I think this definition is too important to leave out. If your practice is not designed to cope with uncertainty, it has no place in a startup - even if your startup is located in government or enterprise. Use some customer development to find out. Use some customer development to find out.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 28, 2009

This builds on a lot of great thinking that has come before, like the agile movements insistence that only the creation of working code counts as progress for a software development team. But lean startups cant afford to be satisfied with just that definition, because there are situations where working code is itself a form of waste.

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Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Take a look at the companies who have raised money (and are still going) after competing: [link] Preparing the pitch for a year is definitely excessive, but I don’t see the harm done in taking a few weeks of doing brutally honest market validation, surveys, financial forecasts etc. Theme: Digg 3 Column by WP Designer.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

But I will tell you not to have too little or too much, because those definitely ruin the food or product. This development philosophy created a culture around rapid prototyping of features, followed by testing them against large numbers of actual customers. If a feature worked, wed keep it. If it didnt, wed trash it.

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Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 123

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

The technical interview is at the heart of these challenges when building a product development team, and so I thought it deserved an entire post on its own. Still, a startup product development team is a service organization. Were there to serve customers direclty, as well as all of the other functions of the company.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Strategy - startups first encounter this when they have the beginnings of a product, and theyve achieved some amount of product/market fit. Usually, that will be about finding new segments of customers that the company can profitably serve. What is customer development? 1 comments: Andy Lawrence said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

Recently, he was bitten by the lean startup bug and has started writing about his experiences attempting to apply lean startup and customer development principles. Managing weekly releases got a lot harder once I started doing customer development. Things started to slip. Just dont push it. Things started to slip.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Definitely interested in the perspective of the open-source contributor solicited with a job offer. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Labels: hiring 4comments: deskin said. Excellent post all around. February 11, 2009 1:00 PM blake borgeson said. Thats some awesome advice.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

The response so far has been nothing short of overwhelming, and I want to especially thank those of you who participated in the survey and customer validation exercise that helped shape this event. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? For now, Id like to ask a favor.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

Now there was nothing wrong with their analysis: anyone who invents a technology as sophisticated as The Transformers is definitely going to make a lot of money. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? They even included a slide with The Transformers on it.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

As a last disclaimer, please consult the definition of the word hacker if youre not familiar with the controversies surrounding that term.) Even if, in a previous life, you were a world expert in some functional specialty, like in-depth market research or scalable systems design, the compressed timeline of a startup makes it irrelevant.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Because, unless you are working in an extremely static environment, your product development team is learning and getting better all the time. Most importantly, I encouraged the leaders of the company to bring awareness of the business challenges to the product development team. Great post, Eric. Balance is important.

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